◇

"Hufh, it"s karaage af-ter-long-while."
"Yay~?" "Karaage nanodesu~"

Arisa is delighted to see karaage on her own plate.
She was also prohibited to eat deep fried food for the past one week after all. I forgot Arisa"s age, so the diet was too effective, thus I changed the plan to only forbid her on snacking, and overeating. Of course, I did not tell Arisa about the miscalculation. I only told her that I"d make it laxer.

Mia"s shares are seasoned rice in a bamboo shoot and boiled vegetables. Even though the bamboo shoot looks like a green bamboo, it can be eaten like a normal bamboo shoot, it"s a fantasy ingredient. I"d have liked if I don"t have to peel it, but it wasn"t quite that lenient.

"Euh?　What"s this karaage?　It"s not a chicken, nor a pork. I think I"ve eaten this before, but I can"t remember~."

When Arisa is still chewing one piece of the karaage, the three beastkin girls ask for more, so I take out the [Whale] karaage from the heating magic tool and put it on the platter.

I have a lot, so eat as much as you like.

It was outside of my calculation to have that much. Considering where it comes from, it"s not like I cannot hold a whale meat festival carefreely, but it"ll be a waste.

If I had just acquired it sooner, I could bring it to baron Muno territory via transporter, but the food situation in the territory has already been improved. Or I should say arranged instead I guess.

During the tea parties, the chattering n.o.ble women told me about n.o.bles who were troubled as to where they could direct those kind of items. Thanks to that, I procured things like old rice, dried fish, and pickled vegetables in large quant.i.ties cheaply. They"re currently being transported to baron Muno territory. I"ve hired guards to escort them due to the sheer quant.i.ties. Since they"re introduced by the viscount s.h.i.+men, an influential man in the duchy capital, they must be reliable.

Let"s return to the topic.
While Arisa continues chewing, she finally remembers what the meat is made from.

"I know, it"s whale right!"

As expected of Arisa.

"They came out as Yamatoni, or Tatsutaage during lunch a long time ago~ but, you did well to get something like whale meat."
"Yeah, the goods arrived just at the right time."

Yes, Arisa didn"t see the great monstrous fish. Therefore, she doesn"t notice that great monstrous fish = whale. There"s this words of wisdom that says ignorance is a bliss.

"Hamburg steak is the strongest, but whale karaage is eveen stronger nodesu!"
"Delish~"

Tama wolfs down the karaage while doing impression like a Nagoya person. I"m glad that it"s to their liking.

"Master, isn"t this meat something that"s quite expensive?　I feel like my power swells up every time I bite it."

I wonder. I didn"t experience such thing when I food-tasted it in advance for poison before, but that might be Liza"s expression for the deliciousness.

"Every biteful~""The meat is pulsing nanodesu."

Un, Pochi. I understand, that you like it, but eat it calmly. Please don"t say scary things like pulsing meat.
You made me remember meat-man that came out in an old game.

"It"s truly delicious. Pochi, Tama, I have reserved that karaage. Be content with the karaage on the forks on both of your hands. Ah, Nana, don"t eat it so off-handedly, savor the taste more. Lulu, don"t be so modest, eat more."

And also Liza, calm down.

Everyone asks for second helping so much, they can"t eat calmly. It might have been a mistake to take the karaage out of the heating magic tool to the large platter.

Seasoned bamboo shoot rice and whale karaage go well together, but I should prohibit it.

"Uuu, Satou."

I have to promise the sulking Mia a new sweets, but well it can"t be helped. I should invent more food other than meat.

I thought of treating lady Karina and her maids too, but they were out for the promise with the little brother-kun.
We"re planning to depart from the duchy capital in the morning of the day after tomorrow, so I guess I should make a bit of feast for tomorrow night.

◇

The last day of the dark auction is wrapped in bizarre enthusiasm.

The princess of the fallen kingdom is going to be exhibited today, that might be the reason. I feel like this world have poisoned me a bit as I have become someone who can plainly accept the fact that people are being sold like commodities.

This auction hall is as large as a theater hall, the first floor is filled with seats for general bidders, while the second floor has box seats-like seats for n.o.bles. Since the agent man from before has secured one seat on the n.o.ble seating in consideration of me, this time I can bid the exhibited items relaxedly. As expected, the people who work as agents are nicely attentive. They"d make me misunderstand like I"m a VIP if they gave me such service.

The first exhibition was for my casted magic sword, and it was immediately won. I tried to offer 10 set of it in jest, but they were all sold just like that. The one who"s bought it is the military accountant that has requested it. The casted magic swords have the name Nanas.h.i.+ inscriptions just like before. The swords are sharp-pointed one-handed swords, which are the most popular form in the duchy capital.

Actually, there aren"t only these 10 casted magic swords, I have scattered another 10 to be exhibited. It"s not only swords, I"ve also mixed in Magic Halberds among them. I"ve added it since there"s this person who lost the bidding against the military accountant before. I also made three times more the same kind medicines as before to be exhibited here.

Since the agent is excellent, they"re probably going to be sold out soon.

There"s a rare item called [Gift Orb] being exhibited.

It seems like it can give the user a skill. The one being exhibited now is the [Fire Magic Skill Gift Orb]. After some fierce compet.i.tion, it was sold for 200 gold coins.

According to the agent"s story, Gift Orbs always gets sold at high price. They comes from the labyrinth city, and only five of them appear in the market in a year it seems. Looks like Gift Orbs that are not used for 10 years will lose their effects.

I ask the agent if there"s anyone who has Chanting skill Gift Orb, but he doesn"t seem to know. It"d be troublesome if he became suspicious, so I didn"t ask about [Chanting] in pinpoint. I asked about 5-6 skills.

The bidding for [Aerodynamic Engine of Airs.h.i.+p] is unexpectedly unpopular.

Calling it match-fixing would be bad, but it seemed that it was arranged for the powerful n.o.bles who wanted this kind of item.

Of course I also didn"t bid.

When I was visiting the airs.h.i.+p garage at the duke castle, the factory manager whom I became acquainted with told me that they will be servicing a broken air power engine in a few days, so he was currently in break. It"s most likely this one. I"m going to prepare for departure tomorrow, but I"ll go there and ask if I can see the exposed parts of the engine.

The thing that I wanted the most [Research Book of Ancient Language] turned out to be something that went way over my expectation.

However I look at it, it looks like a half-size note book. It"s probably a belonging of a transported person. I had told the agent that I would bid up to 40 gold coins, but I raised the limit until 300 gold coins. With this, I"ll cry if the note contains things like self-poetries, or grudge notes.

Thanks to a guy who competed desperately, the price was raised too much. I could have easily bought it for 10 gold coins if that guy wasn"t here, but he opened the bid with 114 gold coins outright.

The agent told me the bidder, so I looked at him, turned out it was an acquaintance.
The heck are you doing hero.

I had prepared myself to compete with the hero again for the next item, [An Unknown Black Plank], but since he didn"t bid for it for some reason, I was able to buy [Smartphone] for 23 gold coins. I"ve never seen the phone, and it also has unfamiliar maker, but it"s probably a smartphone. I wonder if the battery is drained, the electricity doesn"t run even after I"ve pushed the switch.

It"s probably something that the human who has [Research Book of Ancient Language] kept. I asked the agent if they could sell me the way they obtained the items. I set the upper limit of the information to be 10 gold coins.

◇

And then, the [Princess of Fallen Kingdom] is exhibited. It"s a 9 years old girl who"s completely white.

Tama is cuter, but this girl is quite cute too.
She"s a former princess of white-haired tigerkin. That reminds me, the tigerkin kingdom was invaded by the weaselkin kingdom wasn"t it.

I finally understand now.

This is the reason why several beastkin people are gathering in the sewers since a while ago, they"re going to infiltrate this hall. Looks like some of them are infiltrating from the ventilation duct. There"s no one who guards that place so it"s fine, but the operation will be blown if anyone sees them. I secretly push back a squirrelkin girl who"s broken her balance and is going to fall with [Magic Hand].

The bidding is getting heated, it"s been raised until 120 gold coins. Both bidders are humans. One is a n.o.ble from the duchy capital, but the other is a n.o.ble from a kingdom I"ve never heard. The former is easy to understand from his l.u.s.tful expression, but the latter has bloodshot eyes that are scary. Looks like he has some kind of grudges.

I feel the presence of magic, so I look over the location where it comes from, there"s a man who produces a black ball. Apparently, that ball is going to erase the illumination in this room.

A voice shouts out "Fire!" with a cliché voice from the direction of east exit and come the white smoke. When the panic is building up, the light disappear, and the rescue team that has infiltrated from the sewer saves the tiger princess.

Nice~ I feel like seeing some kind of movie.

Since it seems like they"ll be surrounded by the guarding soldiers, I secretly give them helps them with [Magic hand] under the cover of the darkness. Since the foreign n.o.ble from earlier had started to chant Firebolt magic, I used [Magic Hand] to make him faint with a suitable-looking jar. What a dangerous guy.

I invoked [Clairhearing] beside the tiger princess, so I could hear various things.

>[White-tigerkin Language Skill Acquired]

Oops, they"re conversing in their native language huh. I allocate a bit of points to it. It"ll be fine to just complement the small nuances in my brain.

『Princess Runya, I"ve come for you.』
『Galgaoron-sama, I believed that you would surely came to help me.』
『Gal-aniki, we should escape soon.』
『That"s right, leaving aside the weaselkins, we absolutely won"t be able to escape if the duke guards come.』
『Alright, let"s pull back!』
『『Ou!』』

Since the voice sounds familiar, I look at them in darkness, they"re faces that I know after all. It"s the white tiger-kun and his follower from that time. Even though he"s someone who rescues a little girl, he"s also kicking sea lion-kin children huh. I intended to help their escape, but that has disappeared somehow. Do your best for the rest.

When I heard about it later, some tigerkins lost their lives to the pursuit force, but it seems that the tiger princess has safely escaped. I"m not that interested with them, but I check the map in order to avoid getting involved, they"re moving through the forest toward the royal capital of s.h.i.+ga kingdom, not the tigerkin country. They"re probably going for the self-dominion of beastkin. Since they"re going to the opposite direction to where we"re going, we won"t meet them again.

Actually, a human former princess was going to be exhibited after the tiger princess.

However, since the auction was suspended due to this disturbance, she was entrusted to the duke"s house by the duke"s recommendation. I"m not privy of the detail, but she seems to be an illegitimate princess of the kingdom where the fiance of princess Menea comes from.

Now, then, after earning abnormal amount of income, and shake off the ones tailing me, let"s go on a stroll on the night town.
I have no ulterior motives, I"m just going on a stroll.

Even though I returned with candy set as souvenirs, I got accused of playing around at night for some reason.